Tom Harris, also known as The Hill Country Gardener, is a Master Gardener certified by the State of Texas, a Master Pruner certified by the San Antonio Botanical Garden, and a founder and volunteer for the Gardening Volunteers of South Texas (GVST).

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Tom Harris: How About Some Pruning Information? (Again?)

As you may remember, this is the ideal time to do your pruning. The trees that are supposed to go dormant have and the others are sorta in a state of suspended animation; that is, they’re still growing, but vewwy, vewwy, slowly. So, now is the perfect time to prune.

First you need to have a reason to prune. If you don’t, then don’t. Then, remember the 3 Ds: dead, diseased and/or damaged. Remove these first because the bush or tree needs it for health. All pruning is to be done at a bud or branch. Remember that you’re pruning to improve the structure and strength of the tree or bush. If it’s a tree, you may be pruning to help the tree develop a central leader. If you have a tree that has a v-shaped crotch near the top and the two branches are about equal in length, remove the smaller of the two so that the dominant one can take over. If you don’t remove it now, when the tree grows up, that crotch will be a weak point and one of those “blue Northers” with winds up to 35-40 MPH might just split it in two. That’ll probably kill the tree.

You also need to prune to create what is known as scaffolding. This is the spacing of the lateral branches. Prune them when the tree is small so that they don’t compete with each other for space later. Also eliminate any branches with crotch angles less than 60 degrees—that’s about 10 and 2 o’clock. These are weak angles and stand the chance of breaking and “skinning” the bark down the trunk.

Never cut more than 1/3 of the branches off a tree. The leaves on the branches are what feed the roots of the tree. If you remove more than 1/3 of them, you’re gonna curtail some root growth and may even damage the tree severely. Remember on large branches to use the three-cut method; first make a cut under the limb a few inches from the trunk, then cut the limb off about 5-6 inches on out on the limb, and them make the final cut at the collar at the base of the branch.

Remember, too, that making a tree or bush look just right sometimes takes more than one year. Never remove more than 25 percent of the canopy of a bush or tree in any one year.

To make a tree or bush shorter, cut out some of the large branches down to the middle of the plant and leave the others alone. Next year, do it again until the plant is the size you want it to be.

To make a tree or bush thicker, prune the tips of the branches. Each cut will produce 2-4 new branches thus making the plant bushier.

There now; that wasn’t too bad. It’s all been written before, but if you’re like me, you’ve already forgotten much of it by now. Oh, well …

Merry Christmas to you and yours; I hope this is the best one ever for you.